Projo Sports Blog

Brenden Morrow scored off an assist from Mike Modano, Marty Turco allowed only a power-play goal and the Dallas Stars won another home opener, beating the Boston Bruins 4-1 Friday night.

While Modano got career point No. 1,227, five shy of matching Phil Housley for the most by an American-born player, rookie defenseman Matt Niskanen assisted on the first two Dallas goals. Sergei Zubov had a goal and an assist.

The Stars, who started the season with a 4-3 loss at Colorado on Wednesday night, won their fifth straight home opener — they are 8-0-1 the last nine.

Boston played its season opener with Claude Julien, the third coach in a year, and Manny Fernandez, a former Stars backup who is the latest to enter the Bruins’ revolving door of goaltenders the past few seasons.

Even with the newcomers, it was the same bad result for the Bruins. The finished last season with six straight losses and haven’t won a season opener since 2001 (0-4-1 in that span).

The Bruins couldn’t even turn the momentum with a pair of hard-slugging fights right after Nicklas Hagman got behind the Boston defense and pushed a backhander past Fernandez early in the second period to put Dallas up 2-0. It was Hagman’s second goal this season.

On the faceoff, Bruins winger Shawn Thornton got into it with Todd Fedoruk. Once they were in the penalty box, and the puck was dropped again, Milan Lucic — the Bruins rookie in his first NHL game — dropped his gloves and fought with Brad Winchester.

Boston had a power-play chance a couple of minutes after that, but Turco stopped a shot from the right circle.

The Stars then went ahead 3-0 when Morrow, the second-year captain who missed nearly three months last season after being stepped on with a skate and severing two tendons in his right wrist, scored from the middle of the right circle on a pass from Zubov on the break with Modano.

Zubov’s power-play goal with 16:21 left made it 4-1.

A bench minor penalty against Dallas for having too many men on the ice led to Boston’s only goal late in the second period. Turco stopped a couple of point-blank shots but there was nothing he could when Peter Schaefer passed from the right side of the net to Patrice Bergeron, who poked the puck past the sprawling goalie.
Turco had 24 saves.

Fernandez stopped 14 shots. He was in the Stars organization for six seasons and played 24 games as Eddie Belfour’s backup for the 1999-2000 team that went to the Stanley Cup, then was traded to Minnesota. He stayed with the Wild until being dealt to Boston this summer.

Dallas took a 1-0 lead on Joel Lundqvist’s one-timer from the edge of the circle, a shot that went over Fernandez’s left shoulder and hit high in the net with 4:41 left in the first.
The Stars failed to score on a 5-on-3 chance, with Morrow being sandwiched by two defenders while trying to shoot in front of the net. Still with a man-advantage 4 seconds before the first intermission, Modano missed an opening with his shot.

Notes: The Bruins play their first five games on the road against Pacific Division teams. After that, they don’t play another game this season outside the Eastern time zone. ... Both teams play again Saturday night, their first back-to-backs of the season. The Stars are at Nashville and the Bruins at Phoenix. ... A shot by Zubov late in the first period snapped Chuck Kobasew’s stick.

--AP

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